Catering for flight: Rethinking aeromobility as logistics

Abstract

This article employs in-flight catering as an inroad for rethinking aeromobility—and other mobilities—as both a vehicle and a product of logistics. It posits that the production of airline food, or in-flight catering, is representative of how aeromobility as a whole is realised through particular technocratic processes of fragmentation and coordination. Drawing on existing literatures, international news reports, company publications and participant observation at an in-flight catering kitchen, this article examines the globalised coordinative practices, uneven spatial expressions, and exploitative labour regimes that logistically shape in-flight catering and, by extension, air transport. It argues for a more nuanced understanding of supply chain capitalism that does not simply focus on the overt circulation of goods, but also on the production of mobilities as logistical orders. Doing so exposes logistics’ pervasive reach even in the ancillary functions of the global economy, allowing for its injustices and exclusions to be charted more fully.